Did prophecy really die out when the Roman Pope agreed with the Emperor of Rome that the price must be paid for the Roman peace? Did prayer of the heart actually agree to die out when verbal prayer presumed to dominate endless services in the cities that extinguished the stillness of the heart? Was the Beast the real power in the desert, or was the prophet of prayer still heard and the prayer of the heart still silent in the hearts of occasional saints? Or was it delusion to trust prophecy and revere prayer of the Spirit in the heart? The Beast thought it had won all the political arguments so the power of money and weapons joined in a collusion between gold and iron. If the prophet still whispered the Name, awakening hearts to hidden glory that threw out the powers that be, was his prophecy still true?. If the prophet of prayer still hallowed the Name that renewed the throne and crown, did saints still bear witness to the Great Peace that contested the collusive peace of Rome? Or was their prayer in name alone, nominally contestant but in practice a capitulation to the collusions of imperial powers that be? Was desert stillness really still, if behind the stillness, these persistent voices still contested whether stillness was wearing the mark of the Beast?
Where was wisdom when the voices of contention questioned the veracity of stillness? Was wisdom silenced for good or driven back into exile above the heavens? Or was wisdom hidden once more but present when hearts turned back into light and homed in on glory beneath the throne and above the crown? Where was wisdom in those lunar centuries of wax and wain, if not waiting to be loved and known? Wars came and went, as peace still comes and goes, concealing the prophet of prayer in the wings. But was there ever a time when prophecy was silent, or prayer of the heart forgotten? If there was, was that time not timeless in its scope and embrace, actually a new heaven and a new earth that was concealing its presence and glory? Was wisdom not waiting in the wings for the right time to speak, which is when she cannot but speak, because her time is come. Will wisdom continue to welcome wisdom wherever she hears her voice, whenever her voice can be heard above the din of platitudes and the noise of frenzy? When will wisdom gather her own under her own wing, or are they not always already gathered there, where she abides, concealed in the glory that is yet to come? Or does wisdom come when glory comes, concealed in the hallowed Name?
What, then, of the Name and of the reign of glory that comes with the hallowing of the Name of names? Was this not the point of prophecy and the heart of prayer? It this not the unceasing joy of wisdom, ever fulfilling the longing love of wisdom. Was this not the Lord’s own prayer, which he never ceased to pray in his glory, as in the purity of his heart and the light of his love? In him, does the Spirit still abide in stillness, untroubled by the voices of contention? Was his answer not always hidden in the Spirit where wisdom was nestling into glory? So is not stillness always serene, upstream from the contentions that will not be silenced, unless they are embraced by the Cross of boundless love? Unsilenced, the contentions are not suppressed, not oppressed by shallow or narrow repressions. Is not stillness always still, here, at the heart of the hallowed Name?
So whatever arises, is his Name not always hallowed by this costly love? For the tomb is still and silent behind its seals and its immovable stone, where a Beloved Disciple waits outside to be named by the one who hallows the Name. Her heart is one with him in tomb and wisdom, the first to witness to his rising and glory. She still stands with him at the opening of heaven, answering with him our questionings. She was always his co-companion and the lover of his wisdom, not questioning only but also answering, from both sides of the great divide. Abiding in her, in him, the Spirit answers every question, even before any arise, stilling the questioner in the glory of stillness before he was born and after she’s dead. The Beloved Disciple still conceals who she is, so that no-one thinks to stop short of him by tripping up on her, falling short of glory by obsessing on who she was or who she is, now, in the timeless glory of wisdom. The prophecy of prayer weds her wisdom when it wedded him, ever conjoining his wisdom with her glory in awakened hearts.